I get several emails a day–on a good day! sometimes it’s more than several–that have this subject line: translation queries about some aspect of the software that it’s my job to get localized. When I travel to various countries to meet with my translators, I have translation queries of my own: how do I order […]
The morning dawns bright and clear except for the clear part, not so much. This was the view from my hotel room yesterday. By lunchtime your contacts feel like they’ve been in for sixteen hours. You blow your nose and get black gunk. Mind you, you don’t do this in public in Asia–they don’t mind […]
Sometimes Dad hits the nail on the head. From his weekend email report today: “I just finished wading through the email that had accumulated over the weekend, including a whole bunch of spam and some of those sickening sweet inspirational things that would probably make Jesus puke.” He went on to talk about shooting pistols […]
Americans seem to think everything needs to be bigger to be better. Japanese go off the other deep end. I already knew this, as do most people who have any curiosity at all about Japan, but still I found cause for astonishment. I arrived at Narita Airport early Wednesday afternoon and, after some frustration trying […]
The answer, of course, is both. The better question is: why would we ask this question? Because Koreans do. One of the most sweetly jarring things I noticed when visiting Korea for the first time in 1992 (while on tour with the Chicago Chamber Orchestra) was a national obsession with not being Japan. The hotel […]
Don’t worry, my pretensions are modest this time–I just stole his title. It’s Korea day 2 if you count an evening to get to the hotel, have a drink, and crash. I don’t. An aside about business travel: when I travel in my real life, I’m about as low-budget as they come. I’m happier in […]
I’m in Korea and Japan for two weeks on business, and I thought my email home might make a reasonable sort of blog post, so here goes: I’ve arrived safely and found my way through the usual hassles of getting cash, bus to hotel, checked in, and so forth. Now I’m in the club floor […]
Here’s a fun toy courtesy of my blog Mom, Kimberly: a website that creates maps showing where you’ve been. Here are mine. create your own personalized maps